wild_terrain | Echo of Dusk - Chapter XIII (Reply)

Title: Echo of Dusk
Author: wild_terrain (ie. fi_chan)
Banner:

Chapter: [13/25?]
Rating: M
Genre: AU
Summary: Two men met one cold, winters day. One, a cook's assistant, the other a young lawyer. The year was 1950, when this instant attraction occurred... However, the threat of civil war loomed and the two found themselves faced with the risk of separation. Yunho swore he'd protect JaeJoong at all cost...but can he really?

A/N: Peek-a-boojae my loves!! Wow two days ago marked the 5th month of this fic’s duration! That figure looks so old! Thanks for staying with me so long~

Apologies for the squished up sections...the boys talk too much so I was copping 'post client too long' crap from LJ so I had to squish the space up more T_T.

This chappy DEDICATED as promised to mopizm!

OST for this chapter:
This Ain't s a Scene, it's an Arms Race - Fall Out Boy (3.06MB) - DOWNLOAD!
(Ho VS Min)

The atmosphere was still so peaceful as I watched JaeJoong sleeping. It was well into the afternoon now and I could feel my stomach grumbling at me to feed it some dinner. Perhaps that had been the cause for my own drowsiness to evaporate…either that or Jung Yunho’s temper. There I had been…drowsy as hell, thinking about what sort of food I should select to appease my appetite when the tempest crashed into the tent.

“Get your hands off him! Don’t touch him!” Jung had exclaimed before I even really had a chance to prepare myself for his sudden presence. I had only been holding JaeJoong’s hand whilst he slept, so Jung’s fierceness surprised me. I couldn’t believe how annoyingly possessive he was being…I was hardly about to steal JaeJoong away in some crazy scheme. What an idiot.

“Not that it’s any of your business but JaeJoong-hyung was the one that let me in the first place,” I calmly informed him, lifting up our interlocked fingers as evidence for Jung to see.

“Now take your temper elsewhere before you really embarrass yourself.”

After a flash of his deepened scowl, he seemed to calm down slightly after that…but I couldn’t help but notice the disdainful glances he kept giving to our interlocked fingers. Really, he was so childish.

I watched over my shoulder in mild curiosity as Jung ducked back out of his tent, reappearing with a large object in tow. I entertained myself for a few minutes, trying to figure out just what Jung was carrying in. It looked like some sort of broken stand that was used to display the territory maps on.

“What are you bringing in? Do tell me, I’m dying to know,” I drawled.

“It’s for JaeJoong,” he cryptically answered.

“JaeJoong-hyung likes war maps? “

Jung rolled his eyes at me and returned to his awkward-looking stand.

“You play pin-the-tail on the territory or something?”

Of course he didn’t even bother acknowledging my question.

“Isn’t that stand broken?” I continued to harass.

“No. It was. But I was fixing it.”

“That’s fixed? Good job.”

“Don’t speak to your superior like that,” he growled.

“I was complimenting you, don’t misinterpret.”

“You were not…” he scoffed angrily. “And I’d like to see you create miracles with scarce tools.”

I shrugged.

“Are you going to sit there mouthing off or are you going to give me a hand?” he grunted.

“Is this a question or a disguised order?”

“Are you thick? Or is it disguised intelligence?”

I glared at him before gently untangling my fingers from JaeJoong’s.

I helped him secure the stand and stood back up, crossing my arms over my chest in thought. But the odd contraption suddenly tilted backwards towards me. I jumped back in alarm to avoid being hit, wondering angrily if that had been part of Jung’s plan.

As my calves slammed against the bed frame, my balance was lost and I plummeted backwards. In synch with the board smashing onto the ground, I fell onto JaeJoong roughly, instantly waking him from his slumber. But it wasn’t laughter that I heard from behind me like I had been expecting but a deafening yell.

I was almost pushed back off the bed as I felt JaeJoong scrambling away from me. I watched in paralysing shock as he tried flinging himself off the bed. His face was something I would never be able to forget. I hadn’t understood his fright but one look into those eyes told me instantly that something had happened to the old JaeJoong I knew.

Still crying out, he half fell off the bed, trapping his ankle in the constricting sheets. Not knowing what else to do, I quickly moved over to free it for him incase his struggling injured it with a nasty sprain. But as my hand grasped his leg he screamed louder, chilling me whole soul. My fingers left his leg faster than if they had been scorched.

All I could do was watch in anxiety and confusion as Jung suddenly appeared beside me to lift JaeJoong free instead. But even then he was struggling to get away from Jung’s touch.

Jung placed him onto the ground and held onto his shoulder, staring into his eyes as he spoke gently to him. I couldn’t hear what Jung was telling JaeJoong but the calming affect he had on my hyung was undeniable. Like flower petals slowly opening to bathe in the sunlight, Jung’s words were slowly pushing JaeJoong’s fears away, leaving him open, comfortable and secure again…until he was beautiful again; no longer tightly closed up from the sun and shutting everyone else out.

What was going on? There was something really big going on and despite being left in the dark, I could still feel it.

Jung was aware of what was going on and knew how to distil it. He was quite obviously empowered whilst I was not. It was almost like they were spiritually connect and I, nothing but the voyeur.

After such a stirred up atmosphere, I was trying to get used to the peace again when JaeJoong’s relaxed body suddenly snapped back into action. To my surprise he pushed Jung away so hard that Jung almost fell onto his back. He was yelling at Jung for leaving him earlier after he had promised not to. At least JaeJoong’s outrage was loud enough for me to hear them this time…

“Come back to bed,” Jung was insisting.

“Apologise!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not good enough!”

“You asked for my apology!”

“And I’m saying that it’s not good enough!”

“I promised I’d be there as you fell asleep and I promised you wouldn’t be left alone once you were! I am not as liberated as you think I am.”

“Your work is more important than a promise to me?!” JaeJoong was demanding.

“I didn’t want to frighten you after you had finally agreed to try sleeping!”

“You deceived me.”

“It was to help you!”

“Not good enough.”

“JaeJoong…” Jung sighed.

Once more their hushed voices became indecipherable to me from my perch on the bed. I still hadn’t moved since JaeJoong had started yelling at me. At that time, I had felt so confused. But now I was feeling awkward…sitting here and witnessing such a private, intense argument…

I only moved aside when JaeJoong finally let Yunho help him back into the bed. I had leapt upwards so as not to get in their way, but I couldn’t help but feel that I was being ignored. Not necessarily deliberately…more like I had been forgotten. I was standing before them but unable to get my voice to reach them, or my body to be seen by them. If I screamed loudly they wouldn’t have heard; if I had tap danced in front of them they wouldn’t have seen. I had been forgotten in that tent. I hated the feeling.

Jung was still talking to JaeJoong…but only murmurs of determined intonations were being picked up by my ears, almost like I unauthorised to properly hear the words being spoken.

JaeJoong was under the covers; seemingly back to the state of calm most familiar to me. Jung was lying next to him, almost sliding off the tiny bed and looking down at JaeJoong as he rested on his elbow.

I looked away in shocked reflex as my vision was suddenly tainted by their affection. I didn’t know why I was so embarrassed by two men passionately kissing. Maybe it was old jealousy. Whatever it was… I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be here watching this intimate scene.

But I was a little hurt that even JaeJoong hadn’t realised I was still in the tent. I could understand Jung’s reluctance to ever accept my existence, let alone existing in his domain. But JaeJoong… He was too busy either screaming bloody murder or dining on Jung’s lips like a starved kitten.

Actually no…how dare Jung kiss JaeJoong like that in front of me! I know we were hardly the best of friends but this was just nasty. After all, this was the first time I had seen it with my own two eyes. I’d only ever seen it indirectly before like that dark night…outside their tent…watching the shadows within…

I shuddered involuntarily at the strong memory and crossed my arms for some sort of comfort, as little as it was…

JaeJoong’s loud, familiar voice swept throughout the tent once more and I stared back down at him.

He was ordering Jung to lie with him properly. Jung started saying something back at him but was cut off by a forceful JaeJoong.

“NO. Get UNDER the covers. NOW!”

Jung sighed and did as he was told. JaeJoong immediately advanced and draped all his limbs over Jung like a pesty vine growing over a wall. Jung couldn’t have escaped even if he wanted to.

Watching all this was…insanely bizarre. Was I a crazy person? Was I already having delusions in my crisp, youthful age?! How was it that my hyung could push Jung around like that? Since when did Jung let people order him around? The major was the one being bullied whilst the mere private was in control. This did not make any sense. I wasn’t going crazy in here, was I? The air in this stuffy tent hadn’t been tainted by millions of tiny anti-Changmin microbes by Jung, had it?!

“Uhmm… what on earth… Is Lucifer being defeated by a bunny rabbit or something?” I voiced loudly, finally reminding Jung of my presence.

Jung looked up, actually surprised to find me here. He really had forgotten about me. They had been so caught up with each other… It was all so different to what I had pictured in the past. I wasn’t used to this gentle side of him. I wasn’t aware he even had a gentle side…

Although Jung was confusing me, there was a completely different image which was confusing me even more. I could not forget JaeJoong’s screaming. His face when I fell on him…it was stuck on replay in my mind and eating away at my heart.

“What…happened?” I chocked out. “What did they do to him?”

Was I asking Jung? Or was I asking the whole universe? I didn’t know, I just wanted an answer.

Jung looked up at me again but void of any irritation for once. Now he looked worn out and…terribly sad.

“You don’t want to know. It would make you sick,” he truthfully replied. He was so quiet when he spoke, like he was a little boy trying to deal with hurt without his mother there to provide comfort. I noticed he was holding JaeJoong tightly as well.

JaeJoong was staring down at Jung’s chest as he listened mutely to our conversation. Neither Jung nor I wanted to continue the conversation whilst the man we loved was still awake. I could feel the dark atmosphere and JaeJoong’s immobility, all converging together to warn me about how dangerous the truth was going to be. So I waited.

I sat back down onto the floor, watching Jung rubbing JaeJoong’s back. We all remained like that for a long time…like we were wax models:

I was watching them up on the bed…

Jung was looking up at the ceiling…

JaeJoong was looking at Jung’s chest…

They were two ethereal beings communicating to each other without words. I had never seen anything like it. It was almost unnerving.

Eventually JaeJoong closed his eyes and Jung stopped staring at the ceiling to kiss hyung’s forehead. How did he know JaeJoong had fallen asleep if he hadn’t been watching him? How? It was baffling me.

Why was Jung acting like this? Like a sensitive, devoted lover? Was it to get back at me somehow, like he needed to prove he belonged whilst I didn’t? Surely he wasn’t always this gentle or I would have noticed.

“My my, Major,” I began. “You’re quite the lover’s bitch, aren’t you.”

“Excuse me?” he whispered.

“He’s got you good. The fierceness, the strangling limbs…”

“Oh…” Jung sighed. “I’m being punished for leaving this morning."

I nodded in amusement. I liked Jung in this weak state. Later on I definitely had to congratulate JaeJoong for taming the wild tiger.

I decided to use this civil moment between the two of us to inquire about Jung’s deathly contraption that had flattened me. Yet another unsolved mystery…

“So what’s with the broken stand? No, don’t give me that scowl, it is clearly still broken and not fixed. Fixed stands do not topple over and get charged with potential homicide. I’m not insulting your handyman work; I’m merely pointing out the sad reality.”

“Thank you for your heavily unneeded criticism. I was trying to fix it up for JaeJoong.”

“That much was already establish hours ago, genius. Give me more to chew on.”

“You make me feel so eager to open up to you.”

“My apologies. I think you are a possessive, irrational prick; it affects my speech. You may view it as ‘victim of oppressive asshole’ syndrome.”

“I think you are a rude, ignorant, spoilt brat.”

“Enough compliments, you are making me blush.”

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“That cynical ‘I hate everyone’ attitude.”

“It’s not a cynical ‘I hate everyone’ attitude. It’s a cynical ‘I hate Jung Yunho’ attitude. Don’t lump everyone else in. I like every one else. They can get my phone number.”

“I’m sick of listening to your vulgar mouth. If you’re not going to grow up, I’ll personally escort you out of here. Or you can shut your large mouth so JaeJoong doesn’t have to wake up to your pathetic ramblings.”

“I need to grow up? No no, Major, I think you are the worst off here. I don’t show respect for you because you treat me like dirt. You however are the childish one, still blaming the woes of your little life on me. Possibly even because you sense I still like hyung and are unsettled because you know I am a much better person than you are.”

“Excuse me?!”

“Why are you acting like this still? All protective and ‘rawr, I’m a man’ over hyung like he can’t defend himself at all. Why ignore him outside this tent and blow him off when you don’t have time to be with him?”

“I’m not explaining our relationship to you.”

“‘Our relationship’? Like you actually have provided a decent one for him?”

Oh-oh. I’d hit a sensitive spot. He was barely controlling his temper. What fun. Maybe now he’d crack and JaeJoong could finally wake up and see what an asshole his boyfriend really was.

“You…you have no idea what you are talking about.”

His eyes were closed, his nostrils flaring. He was calming himself back down. I even noticed him holding JaeJoong even tighter and rubbing his cheek against JaeJoong’s forehead.

“Hyung’s not awake to defend you this time. Only the cold, hard truth can be seen now. Go on, let the snake speak for himself.”

“JaeJoong doesn’t need your approval to date me.”

“JaeJoong doesn’t need your approval to let me visit him,” I countered.

“No-one can be trusted around him anymore. You are not so mighty that you have exemption from that list.”

“Then neither do you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You above everyone cannot be trusted.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“He was a kid, Jung! A kid. He may have been twenty-three but he was still a kid. Why would you take advantage of him like that?!”

“Take…advantage?” he broke out of his whispering, echoing my proclamation loudly.

“Before he was captured. You had sex with him. You preyed on his innocent crush and turned him into whatever you wanted him to be. You look advantage. You know what that’s classified as in our culture? R-A-P-E.”

For once in my life I felt terrified by Jung Yunho. He was so gentle moving JaeJoong off himself and slowly getting off the bed. But his eyes…they didn’t look human anymore.

I stood up and backed away slowly. He was cornering me slowly like a wild animal sizing up its prey. My heart was racing painfully. I was losing confidence quickly.

I bolted out of the tent and he leapt at me and I was thrown violently onto the ground.

“You IGNORANT ASSHOLE!” he yelled at me, coming over to kick my stomach in painfully.

“DON’T YOU EVER CALL ME A FUCKING RAPIST!”

His face was so red, his whole body shaking as he loomed over me.

“I WOULD NEVER DO THAT TO HIM! I COULDN’T EVER. FUCK YOU!”

In a flash someone was pulling Jung back away from me and Jung’s friend MinWoo was crouching down in front of me to make sure I didn’t make a move. A crowd of soldiers were staring at us, amazed at their irate Major losing his temper at the pathetic-looking private who had fallen onto the ground.

“What are you thinking calling the Major a rapist?!” MinWoo was demanding in angry wonder as he grasped my arms to make sure I was pinned further into the ground. I watched the other man leading Jung further away, back into the tent.

“H-He is,” I breathed out, trying to stop my own shaking. “Why do you always refuse to see the bad parts to him!”

“Major never raped anyone! At least not that I know of. Especially not Kim JaeJoong!” MinWoo exploded in shock. “Why would he? He was the one who stopped it!”

“Stopped what?!”

“The rape.”

“H-Huh?” I let out tiredly.

“Kim’s attackers. Major stopped them. He almost died doing it.”

“What attackers?”

“The North Koreans.”

I stared up at MinWoo, unable to speak. What was he talking about?!

“I was there. I saw them talking about it. Are you daft, Shim? Haven’t you ever heard about those camps before? My father told me all about the treatment prisoners got during the world wars. They rape lots of women because they are sick, crazy asses and need control over something. Kim’s not a woman but… maybe the North Koreans are sicker than the rest of the world,” he spat. “But I don’t know where you’ve dreamed up the notion that Major had anything to do with it. He almost had a nervous breakdown when he figured it all out. I thought he was going to get killed that day, I really did. So keep your mouth shut, Shim, because it’s a fucking miracle that they are both back here!”

MinWoo shook his head at me in disgust. He glanced quickly at my shell-shocked, paralysed body and deemed me no longer a threat to his Major. Walking away from me I saw him shaking his head one last time to let out the remaining anger he felt.

I tried to sit back up, leaning on my elbow for support but I could barely breathe. My mind was shocked into numbness for a long, long time afterwards. All I could do with sit, concentrating on my breathing. By the time I was even strong enough to stand up I still couldn’t even allow myself to think about the impossible.

I blocked out JaeJoong’s screaming from my mind as I had fallen onto him. It hurt too much now. The impossible…

I slowly hobbled back to the tent like a zombie and stood like a paralysed fool in the entrance. Yunho was standing with his back to me, his hands on his hips, his head bent down in some sort of meditation. He looked so angry still. My nerves were still on fire from the fear of being near him again but… like a lost child desperate for comfort I was drawn to him so strongly. Part of me was absolutely sickened by needing him but the other part of me was yearning for him so badly.

“Y-Yunho-sshi,” I whimpered.

His head snapped around angrily from his meditation, obviously demanding to know with his eyes why I had dared to enter his tent again.

“W-Why?” I choked out. “H-How?”

My knees were growing weaker with each passing second. I quickly lowered myself onto the ground before I could collapse and make a spectacle of myself.

Yunho stared at me warily, assessing my new behaviour critically.

“I’m burning…” I whispered.

“I see.”

“I hate them.”

“Who.”

“Those bastards.”

“Hn.”

“It hurts…” I whispered, ignoring his cold tone.

“Your heart? Your soul? Your being?”

I nodded numbly.

“The anger is overwhelming you? You want to do drastic things to people? You want someone to hurt more than you do?”

I looked up at him helplessly.

He let out a long, helpless sigh. “You know Shim, we’ve always been ironically kindred. And I don’t care much for you so it’s frustrating.”

I swallowed the suffocatingly large lump in my throat. It really was terribly ironic…that despite all the bitterness I felt for him, I now felt so incredibly connected to him. We were sharing the same disaster. My pain was his, his pain was mine.

“Is…he….okay?” I whispered sadly.

“Does he look okay?”

“I’m so angry.”

“Learn to deal with it. It’s not going away anytime soon. I’m a veteran; I should know.”

“I want this war to end.”

“I want it to end as well.”

“They really…?”

“They really.”

“Can I…see…?”

“I thought you said my approval for your visitations is never necessary,” he replied with a tired smile.

“It is,” I insisted, taking a deep breath. “Guard him with your life.”

“I don’t like it when you’re agreeing with me. It feels too wrong…”

“Hah hah,” I tiredly replied. Getting up, I made my way over to where Yunho was sitting. He got up to vacate his space next to JaeJoong for me.

I stared down at my sleeping hyung. With trembling fingers I carefully touched the skin of his cheek. It was hard to believe this was happening…for real. That a North Korean had started non-consensual sexual behaviour with my hyung. It didn’t seem real…

JaeJoong’s calm, sleeping face made it ever harder to sink in…

So. JaeJoong had been raped. For real. Fuck…

I had so many questions, so many fears…

“Will he be alright?”

“Eventually.”

“Is he in pain?”

“We’re working on that.”

“Is he infected?”

“He had some secondary-stage Syphilis but we’ve already given him appropriate penicillin doses. He doesn’t have a fever anymore or rashes so we’re presuming that it’s okay. We think there may have been some Gonorrhea as well…”

Everything he was saying to me came out reluctantly. So many sighs and carefully restrained bitterness… I could barely register everything he was saying to me either.

“We?”

“Hangeng-sshi and myself.” He stared at me carefully, almost a little satisfied that everyone I had felt suspicious and wary of lately were suddenly the heroes of JaeJoong’s life.

“All those infections from North Korea? How filthy is your average civilian?!”

Yunho sighed. “Shim…it didn’t just happen once.”

That silenced me completely. I couldn’t believe it had never occurred to me before now. Of course it wouldn’t have been once…this was war.

“Shim, how old are you now? Was it twenty-one?”

“I just turned twenty-two. Don’t underestimate me,” I replied, wiping my watery eyes angrily, misinterpreting his question for a criticism of my tears.

“We were twenty-three when we first met,” he replied, almost in a trance as he fiddled round with that stand again.
“It was outside a newspaper stand in his hometown. I don’t know if he considers it a happy memory or not…but I do. So I just assumed…”

I stopped looking at my precious JaeJoong to stare at the tall man across the tent from me. He was starring determinedly at the contraption in front of him which he had seemingly lifted back off the floor. I let the image sink in and then slowly presented him with my first honest smile.

“You made him a replica.”

“I made him a replica.”

“So cute,” I kept smiling even wider. “But where are your papers?”

“You try finding them in the middle of no-where whilst there is a war going on. Geez, must you always be so critical?”

“I was born to be one of the great cynics of this land.”

“You’re going to die a very lonely person, you know.”

I shrugged as he picked up the small pile of newspapers he had collected earlier and tried arranging them on the wonky stand.

“You know…both my parents are teachers. I’m the eldest so they’ve always enforced study, discipline and the need for good credentials onto me.”

Yunho glanced at me tiredly, wondering why I had thought he was interested in the history of my life.

“My point is,” I continued, rolling my eyes at him, “that my parents sent me a whole lot of the buggers to keep my talents up. I can get them if you want.”

Yunho stared back at me in uncertainty.

“Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t like you very much,” I smiled.

“Deal then,” he smiled back.

“What, if I had asked to be your friend you wouldn’t have been willing to take them from me?”

”Absolutely.”

“Bastard,” I laughed despite myself.

We both looked away awkwardly and I returned to timidly stroking JaeJoong’s soft cheek with my thumb. I really didn’t like my hyung’s boyfriend but now I understood him better…his possessiveness and over protectiveness…they were understandable under these new circumstances. As long as it wouldn’t affect me anymore, I’d maybe put more effort into backing off his case and releasing my claws from his skin.

As awkward as his effort may look to the untrained eye, I was quite impressed by Yunho’s behaviour…as much as it pained for me to say it. He had made JaeJoong a replica of their first meeting spot so that he might feel safer and happier. It was crazily romantic and thoughtful – two attributes I would never have associated with Jung Yunho!

But after everything I had seen today… One of the most surprising things had been Yunho. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know when…but that man before me had fallen in love with my hyung. And from the way he was determinedly setting up the newspaper stand I think it might have happened long before I ever knew JaeJoong.

“Two years ago I…” I began awkwardly, continuing to stare down at my hyung to avoid the Major’s eyes. “I heard you both…”

My cheeks were turning red, I could feel it! “I heard you both going at it. I was inexperienced, I thought you were tricking him into it or something,” I sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise how offensive the R-word would be to you… I didn’t know about North Korea…”

I could see Yunho out of my peripheral vision watching me pensively. “That’s okay. It was very bad-spirited to take out all my frustrations on you in the first place…”

“What is this, a competition for the worse sins?!” I exclaimed in wonder.

“How can JaeJoong possibly put up with your mouth?” he shot back.

“Well, there is the occasional violence…”

“I underestimated him,” he smirked over at JaeJoong proudly.

Jung Yunho was surprised when I dropped my pile of newspapers onto the floor a little while later. I followed his surprised gaze onto the now haphazardly scattered pile that I had carelessly dropped.

“Oh…” I chuckled as I watched the elder man picking one up from the middle of the mess. “Yeh, that one is his. I never understood why he brought it with him. But then again, who ever understands hyung,” I chuckled.

“The burning house…” I heard Yunho laugh, lost in an old memory. I looked down at him, perched on the ground, lost in his own little world. Whatever the memory was about, it was obvious that JaeJoong felt it strongly too. He had taken that old newspaper with him to war and cherished it all this time, after all.

I sighed. It was time to let go…go on in life. How could I ever compete with a Major who built a fricken newspaper stand? I couldn’t understand their love…but I guess I never really would. It wasn’t something made for me to figure out; it was made for them… and only them. At least I had some reassurance knowing that JaeJoong was being comforted in some way.

I walked over to my hyung one last time and kissed his cheek. I was surprised I couldn’t hear Jung Yunho’s hackles!

“You won the argument, kid,” I whispered. “Your boyfriend isn’t always an asshole.”

“OI!”

I could help but smirking at Yunho’s indignation. I hadn’t thought he would have been able to hear me. And here I was thinking that his ears were abnormally small…like his head.

///TBC///

A/N: Yes yes, I’m sorry, Min just had to get the last laugh in. I owed it to him.
He’s tough, that kid… You aren’t seeing the last of him.

So how are y'all feeling? Can you ever remember what has happened on the fic? (I hate long absences T_T). Well feel free to comment as always~